Complete coverage
The Springfield News-Sun digs into important public safety issues, including recent stories on new state standards for law enforcement officers and debates over the use of body cameras.
By the numbers
$91,000: Cost to upgrade the Clark County phone system that would make video arraignments possible
10 years: Age of current Clark County phone system
6 hours: Time to takes deputies to make round trips to state prisons such as Lucasville and Mansfield
Video arraignments could save time and money and improve security, the Clark County sheriff argues, but at least one judge says he prefers that inmates appear before him to enter their pleas.
A $91,000 upgrade of a 10-year-old phone system for the county is coming soon that will make video arraignments possible from state prisons and next door from the county jail. The judges in the common pleas and municipal courts must decide whether video will be used for arraignments in their individual courtrooms.
Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly would like to eliminate the time and cost to transport inmates in state prisons facing additional charges to Springfield and back.
>>RELATED: Committee: Municipal courts need review in Springfield's budget crisis
>>MORE COVERAGE: Tri-County Jail population within guidelines for first time in years
Sometimes inmates have to be kept overnight at additional cost. On average once a week Kelly said he sends deputies to either the prison processing center near Columbus or on six-hour round trips to state prisons such as Lucasville and Mansfield for the same purpose.
“Everything takes manpower to operate, and I have staff going in a hundred different directions every day,” Kelly said. “If we could use technology, then that would be a tax dollars savings, less wear and tear on the vehicle. And sometimes I have to pay overtime to get the deputies that we need to go to a prison to pick them up.”
Most of the arraignments, which take place every day, involve walking inmates next door to the courthouses. A video setup would change that process.
“We’re very lucky here that we’re connected by a walkway so we can still do it the preferred traditional way of being able to just walk them over,” Municipal Court Judge Eugene Nevius said. “Those of us who’ve been in this business a long time like to give them that opportunity to be present in open court.”
Judges Denise Moody, Richard O’Neill and Thomas Capper didn’t respond to interview requests.
Video arraignments are about two years old in Champaign County.
With the courthouse in Urbana and inmates in the Tri-County Regional jail in Mechanicsburg, the department saves on transportation costs for Champaign County Common Pleas Court. The municipal court in Urbana has its own staff for transports for trials and sentencings, but also uses video for arraignments to save time and money.
“There haven’t been many difficulties with it at all,” said Lt. Chris Copeland of the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office. “For Champaign County, it definitely is an asset.”
Video has also increased officer safety and public safety, Copeland said. After the Tri-County Jail was built in Mechanicsburg in 2001, it was routine to have 30 inmates to transport to both courts.
“It was an officer safety issue because we didn’t have the manpower to split the group up enough, so you’d have one deputy and eight or nine inmates,” Copeland said.
The technology also reduces the number of times an inmate is in a public area with the opportunity to acquire contraband, Copeland said.
The Clark County Municipal Court has its own security staff to walk inmates over from the jail to the courthouse. Nevius is satisfied with the process.
“To me I don’t think it’s a security issue, which is always a primary concern, but I think we have a real good handle on that,” Nevius said. “As long as we have a good handle on that, I think we should still be doing it the preferred way.”
>>DETAILS: Clark County court cases declining, but not staffs
Kim Deniston, the county’s director of information systems, said the judges will have to buy whatever they want to use as a monitor, from a small screen to a large screen.
While the county courthouse will automatically have the upgraded phone system, the municipal courtrooms won’t. Deniston, however, has a solution. Her offices are in the same building as the municipal courtrooms, so she has offered to run phone lines to those courtrooms for video use.
“There are a lot of solutions for it,” she said. “We wanted to get the infrastructure in place so that we weren’t the ones holding it up.”
Deniston suggested a mobile unit for each courthouse that would be moved from courtroom to courtroom. She also suggested a monitor large enough for viewing by everyone in the courtroom. The monitor would have a built-in camera like a webcam on a laptop computer and an embedded phone for calls to go directly from the monitor in the jail to the courtroom.
Nevius, however, isn’t satisfied with that arrangement.
“There are lots of things involved from the court’s standpoint in being able to read an individual, of setting bond, having the ability to inquire, read body language, have the attorney present there,” Nevius said. “There’s so much that goes into all that that you can’t do through a camera, you can’t do through a monitor.”
Nevius did say that special circumstances like transporting inmates from faraway prisons is something he would consider.
“It’s not that I’m opposed to that concept,” he said. “I can see situations where it would make sense.”
Clark County Prosecutor Andy Wilson likes the idea of Clark County doing what’s being done in many surrounding counties.
“I clearly would support it, and whatever the courts want we would accommodate it over here at the prosecutor’s office,” Wilson said. “Clearly I’m pro-technology and pro-advancing us to better efficiency if we can get there.”
The phone upgrade means video conferencing will be enabled throughout county offices. Wilson said the prosecutor’s office could use it for interviewing witnesses from prisons and for participating in many meetings he regularly attends in Columbus. He said his office travels for such things at least twice a week.
“Anything that allows us to use technology to cut down travel time and do business more efficiently we’re certainly in favor of,” he said. “If the infrastructure’s there and the opportunity to use it’s there where other partners are on board, then certainly we will use it.”
About the Author